Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving a visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via ‘natural’ (without a tariff being imposed) search results. Such natural search results are often referred to as ‘organic’ or ‘algorithmic’ search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page) and more frequently that a site appears in a search result list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. Page rankings are largely based on the degree of surfer interest and traffic flow, page impressions, freshness, search term density, links in and out, frequency of updates, age of page and other factors.
One disadvantage of generic SEO is that it relies on the search engine robots ‘finding’ the websites, indexing them and then positioning them on the search engine page ranking. Typical search engine optimisation (SEO) focuses on creation and manipulation of content to existing or new websites, both overtly and covertly. These changes make the website more visible to the search engine robots and, therefore, they are indexed with specific keywords associated with the website. It is known that SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Search engines are value neutral, inasmuch as they are not concerned with truth or reputation. Hence, searches can result in mis-characterisation and damage to the reputation of individuals and businesses, if the untruthful websites become more popular than the truthful websites.
As effective SEO schemes may require changes to the HTML source code of a site and site content, SEO tactics may be incorporated into website development and design. Optimizing a website to improve its rating on website searching typically involves editing its content and hyper-text mark-up language (HTML) and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. The term ‘search engine friendly’ is also often used to describe website designs, content management systems, videos, images, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.
In some scenarios, the acronym ‘SEOs’ may also refer to ‘search engine optimizers’, a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign.
Most users of search engines cease reviewing web-site content at the first or second page. Whilst it may be tempting for a person or organisation to re-engineer, or simply remove, uncomplimentary, defamatory or libellous content, this raises ethical concerns in the free market for information. One recent tactic for the use of SEOs is website promotion, in order to bring more visitors to specific websites. In recent years, website promotion, say through SEO, has also been used in the area of on-line reputation protection and/or on-line reputation promotion, for example to improve product exposure or improve public relations for certain celebrities or public figures. Alternative techniques to SEO are also used for website promotion, such as web content development and search engine submission, in order to increase (search) traffic to a site.
One problem with SEO, for example in the context of website promotion, is that SEO requires access to each and every website in order for certain names, terms or expressions to be promoted. Thus, access to each of these websites is required in order to make and enforce the necessary/desired website changes.
Thus, a need exists for at least an apparatus (such as a processor engine/integrated circuit) and method promoting a web-site in a search process, and in particular for a scalable computer-implemented method of affecting a website's (URL) position on a search engine(s) page ranking.